The tiers really make Epcot look bad

[Magpie]

That's what I figured, one FP and two other things because the computer is making me pick them

I agree with your last paragraph. But then I guess I wonder about the admission fee? If it's just a food and drink mall, is that worth the same price as an MK admission?

Good question!

But it's not really "just a food and drink mall". I mean, there may not be a ton of thrill rides, but there are rides. And shows. And that whole Innoventions thing.

In my opinion, it's less of a mall and more of a World's Fair. And, as I recall, they generally charge entrance admission for Fairs and Exhibitions and Festivals. At least, they do in my town.

Plus, most tickets these days seem to be sold in bundles. 3 days. 7 days. Annual Passes. Park hoppers. To adults staying at an Epcot resort, the price of admission to Epcot may feel like a bargain. However, a family with young kids, staying on the Monorail line might not agree, and consider it overpriced for what they get. How much does any one park cost, ultimately, if you're using a 10 day pass?

It's all in where you stand, I suppose.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Good question!

But it's not really "just a food and drink mall". I mean, there may not be a ton of thrill rides, but there are rides. And shows. And that whole Innoventions thing.

In my opinion, it's less of a mall and more of a World's Fair. And, as I recall, they generally charge entrance admission for Fairs and Exhibitions and Festivals. At least, they do in my town.

Plus, most tickets these days seem to be sold in bundles. 3 days. 7 days. Annual Passes. Park hoppers. To adults staying at an Epcot resort, the price of admission to Epcot may feel like a bargain. However, a family with young kids, staying on the Monorail line might not agree, and consider it overpriced for what they get. How much does any one park cost, ultimately, if you're using a 10 day pass?

It's all in where you stand, I suppose.

Yeah, I get the point with the bundling, then you don't notice as much, it just becomes a part of a package. I guess value is in the eye of the beholder too.

But the more I think about this, the more I think that hopping to Epcot should be free.

 

[morethananyonex]

Yeah, I get the point with the bundling, then you don't notice as much, it just becomes a part of a package. I guess value is in the eye of the beholder too.

But the more I think about this, the more I think that hopping to Epcot should be free.

Maybe if people stop paying for it they'd make it free, or "free" because they'd just increase ticket prices to make up for it.

I don't think Epcot (or DHS and AK) would have even close to the numbers they do without the MK and the decreasing cost per day of multi day tickets. I love Epcot and the atmosphere. I love wandering WS, we have many meals there, etc. I would still never pay $300 for my family to spend one day there.

 

[sethschroeder]

Is Maelstrom that packed? I feel we can still walk on there with ease.

We will do TT, SE, MS

We never want to do Soarin again unless they update it. I think Epcott really is fine with tiers and personally for us works as it keeps TT open and forces people to pick Soarin or the Fireworks.

We always jump park to park so staying at the boardwalk Epcott is a 3-5 hour park with possibly a meal throwing in as well and we will hit up Epcott when checking line times and the rides we want to hit are low when leaving the resort.

 

[ktlm]

In reality, EPCOT is basically a 1 FP park now. The 2nd tier are on most days throwaways for things that you would never need a FP on, except for maybe spring break or the week between Christmas and New Years.

It is because FP+ pre-booking is an unworkable system. They encourage everyone to use FP+, where before not everyone used FP- that in and of itself causes a system overload. Then, because you have to pick 60 days before your trip what time and when you have to ride it, and you have to guess whether you will need a FP, and when, you are going to pick FP for the more popular rides even if you might not have needed or gotten them that particular day in the park, again overloading the system. Of course, usually Soarin you do need a FP, but Test Track we had times that we did not as the line was only 20 minutes, or that the single rider line was short and we just did that. Of course, if they are offering you a FP+ from your home, everyone will just go ahead and book, which without tiers again overloaded the system. I would say 50% of the time we did not get Test Track FPs, but when we were offered it pre-trip before tiering went into effect, of course we took it. Why take the risk of waiting and seeing when you can go ahead and have a FP for both tiering and Soarin. So, again the system was unworkable, as it encouraged flooding the system. That led to tiers.

Of course, I'm sure Disney is also thinking, that if we tier it because of the overloading, maybe that will encourage people to add a 2nd day at EPCOT so they can FP+ both.

The situation is made even worse because apparently WDW has added a bunch more FP+ to the rides, than were spit out during the day by the old machines to deal with the fact that the encouragement for everyone to use FP+ has overloaded the system (because of the people that wouldn't have bothered with it under the old system). With all the extra FP for the ride, that means the standby line has consistently been longer, so were 50% of the time we would have an under 30 minute wait in the standby line, or a 10 minute wait in the single rider line, now the standby line appears to be consistently 60 minutes or more, and the single rider appears to be a lot longer too.


I agree the tiering makes EPCOT look bad. DHS isn't that much better. The tiering is probably the primary reason we are likely going to cancel our annual trip this year I went ahead and booked it hoping that things would change but after dealing with FP+ before tiering which we already did not like for the most part, we are about 90% sure that we will cancel if things don't change. I'm still hopeful that WDW will ultimately fix their unworkable system. I saw they put a new post on facebook about FP+ today, and they have a bunch of negative comments as usual.

 

[HockeyMomNH]

We were just working on plans for our summer trip, and we have decided not to waste FP on Epcot at all. We use park hoppers, so on days that we are going to be at Epcot we are using our FP selections at a different park.

We have even planned one day where we are doing Epcot in the morning, hopping over to DHS for mid day FP and then back to Epcot in the evening. I would rather ride RnR, ToT and ST than use the FP at Epcot.

 

[ArwenMarie]

Maybe if people stop paying for it they'd make it free, or "free" because they'd just increase ticket prices to make up for it.

I don't think Epcot (or DHS and AK) would have even close to the numbers they do without the MK and the decreasing cost per day of multi day tickets. I love Epcot and the atmosphere. I love wandering WS, we have many meals there, etc. I would still never pay $300 for my family to spend one day there.

I agree.

Looking at the daily ticket prices, I think if MK is $100, then Epcot, DHS and AK should be $50.

 

[ArwenMarie]

We were just working on plans for our summer trip, and we have decided not to waste FP on Epcot at all. We use park hoppers, so on days that we are going to be at Epcot we are using our FP selections at a different park.

We have even planned one day where we are doing Epcot in the morning, hopping over to DHS for mid day FP and then back to Epcot in the evening. I would rather ride RnR, ToT and ST than use the FP at Epcot.

That's a good plan.

Very true, it's hardly worth using them there.

 

[flicx]

The sad truth is Disney has ignored epcot for close to a decade now. They have so much potential at this park. Unfortunately the corporate greed at Disney is at an all time high. I don't see much help soon for this park.

 

[DLFT]

I wonder how this will change when/if park hopping is included into FP+. If MK and AK were to remain un-tiered, this wouldn't be so bad, because you could make your FP+ for Soarin or TT and then hop over to somewhere where FP could be useful.

 

[johde]

I agree.

Looking at the daily ticket prices, I think if MK is $100, then Epcot, DHS and AK should be $50.

What's funny is that's basically a 5 day ticket. At $304, you could almost think of it as paying $100 for your first day at the MK and $51 a day for each of the other parks, and a repeat visit to 1 park. I wonder how many 1 day 1 park tickets the EPCOT, DHS, and DAK really sell compared to the MK.

 

[ArwenMarie]

What's funny is that's basically a 5 day ticket. At $304, you could almost think of it as paying $100 for your first day at the MK and $51 a day for each of the other parks, and a repeat visit to 1 park. I wonder how many 1 day 1 park tickets the EPCOT, DHS, and DAK really sell compared to the MK.

Good catch! Maybe that's a better way to think about the pricing.

Yeah, I doubt they sell many one-day tickets to Epcot, DHS or AK.

 

[mickeysgirl17]

I don't think anyone will argue this point. It's just too bad that Disney doesn't care and won't do anything about it.

I say they should do away with the tiering and just let people pick what they want/what's available. It is by far my biggest complaint about FP+!

Agree
I'm not a fan of fastpass+ at all, but the tiering system made things from bad to worse. I think this is how Disney tries to get people to go to the same park more than once in their trip and a way to extend a trip to more days. Because we are so limited to what we can get, going more days will give more options to do everything we want. It just won't be possible unless your going to the same park more than once.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Epcot was never meant to be a ride park. Those who see it as a failure because it doesn't have enough rides for them don't get the park at all.

 

[flicx]

Epcot was never meant to be a ride park. Those who see it as a failure because it doesn't have enough rides for them don't get the park at all.

I think we get what EPCOT is about. Lately it is about adding nothing, shows, rides or attractions.

 

[wisblue]

It is confusing to me that Mission Space is a Tier 2 attraction.

MK seem to offer the most options where FP+ is concerned.

There are just a lot of people who have no interest in MS because of the spinning and other effects. So, the demand for it is not that great and they can afford to offer it as a Tier 2 attraction.

For my Epcot evening, I choose Soarin, Mission Space and Spaceship Earth. If any of the FPs are "wasted" because of short standby lines, so be it. But, when we visited over Christmas week they definitely were not wasted.

And, by going to Epcot on an AM EMH day (Monday, December 30), we had no trouble riding both Soarin and Test Track (single rider) in that first hour. In fact, my daughter and I rode side by side on TT because there was nobody in the standby line that early (they were all held up in the design room).

 

[BuckeyeBama]

I think we get what EPCOT is about. Lately it is about adding nothing, shows, rides or attractions.

When you consider what they have done with the F&W festival, the concerts, the food carts during other times of the year, etc, Epcot is awesome. They do not need to ad that other stuff.

 

[shyjade]

Agree
I'm not a fan of fastpass+ at all, but the tiering system made things from bad to worse. I think this is how Disney tries to get people to go to the same park more than once in their trip and a way to extend a trip to more days. Because we are so limited to what we can get, going more days will give more options to do everything we want. It just won't be possible unless your going to the same park more than once.

It's actually having the opposite effect on us for our upcoming trip. While we normally go to Epcot 2/3 of the days of our trip, I just can't justify "wasting" 2 FP+ each day at Epcot. I mean, seriously...if we can't ride 2 rides we enjoy with FP+, why spend the time hopping over to Epcot on busy days during F+W?

Yes, we will still be in other parks, but we will be spending a LOT less money this way. Epcot is/was our weakness...the food, the drinks, the WS shopping. If I spend that time in AK or MK instead, we are much more likely to grab a pizza at Pizzafari or hot dog at Caseys, and we don't really shop at the other parks. Last trip we were there a week and never stepped foot in a single store on Main Street. But I spent a LOT in the WS!

Epcot was our indulgent park. But if I can't ride 2 of my favorite rides in the same day (without a long wait, which I just won't do on vacation), then why bother?

 

[morethananyonex]

Epcot was never meant to be a ride park. Those who see it as a failure because it doesn't have enough rides for them don't get the park at all.

You're right. Epcot was never meant to have any of the Disney characters in the park and was supposed to be full of "edutainment". Over the years, Disney has changed Epcot from what it was meant to be, it's not a misunderstanding on the part of the guests.

World of Motion gone in favour of Test Track. Horizons gone in favour of Mission Space. Nemo overlay on Living Seas. Wonders of Life gone. Soarin added. Characters added all over the place, including in World Showcase and even a popular Character meal taking the place of a country's restaurant. All the changes to Epcot over the years make it seem like Disney also doesn't get the park at all. They've taken away attractions that are related to the original concept in favour of thrills.

IMO, Epcot is in a weird place right now. It's trying to be both that original concept edutainment park while also trying to appeal to the masses with attractions. It seems to have become the place for seasonal festivals which cost extra to enjoy parts of and doesn't really help people who don't travel at those times of year. While the atmosphere at Epcot is awesome, and it's the hands down best park for wandering around, it's really sad compared to what it could be, particularly Future World.

 

[mom2cinderella]

IMO, Epcot is in a weird place right now. It's trying to be both that original concept edutainment park while also trying to appeal to the masses with attractions. It seems to have become the place for seasonal festivals which cost extra to enjoy parts of and doesn't really help people who don't travel at those times of year. While the atmosphere at Epcot is awesome, and it's the hands down best park for wandering around, it's really sad compared to what it could be, particularly Future World.

I completely agree. We are going in early September and I'm only planning on one day at Epcot. Future World to me is a lot of walking with very little to show for it.